What Sim ?

[Lawser]

A cry for help folks, I have lurked around the forums for years bought gear, lost interest due to one thing or another....Anyway trying hard to get back in and I think a sim would be the best way forward.
I still have a REFLEX XTR sim but understand this is no longer supported ? if so what would you recommend ?
Radios - JR PCM 9x & spectrum DX7
Helis - TREX 450 & TT Raptor 50

[PeteStewardson]

I don't think you can go far wrong with Phoenix. Having said that I moved onto neXt but only because it supports the vControl TX and runs natively on a mac. Otherwise I was happy with Phoenix.

[thumb_rocker]

Tried them all & found Realflight to be very good as a all round Sim with good performance with loads of free model downloads (Virtually every model you can find out there). Good support on their forums KnifeEdge (Where you find Model & Airport downloads) . NeXt sim is also very good. I also found Heli-X to have one of the best training features for orientation training.

[rockyrotti]

Had Phoenix for years its a good sim for beginner's. But cgm next is by far a better sim .

[10x]

+1 FOR NeXt

[KevDavies]

the big four will suit you well, AccuRC, Phoenix, Realflight or neXt. Personally I prefer AccuRC, but Realflight is a very close second

[Bob H]

A cry for help folks, I have lurked around the forums for years bought gear, lost interest due to one thing or another....Anyway trying hard to get back in and I think a sim would be the best way forward.
I still have a REFLEX XTR sim but understand this is no longer supported ? if so what would you recommend ?
Radios - JR PCM 9x & spectrum DX7
Helis - TREX 450 & TT Raptor 50

This may well be a bit controversial but I'm not going to recommend a sim. That would be silly, frankly. Mainly due to the fact that we're all different in terms of our flying standards, what we need from our sim time and the state of our computers that they're going to run on and how we learn. What I am going to recommend is that you get yourself down to one of the major hobby shops close to you with your transmitter(s) and try out as many sims as you can before you buy any of them. They all fly quite differently and what works for most of us that have replied is probably not going to work for you - I personally, hate Phoenix but I wouldn't try to persuade you not to buy it based on my dislike of it.

Get your Tx that you're going to sim with, drive down to Midland Heli's or wherever is most convenient if you can't get there and try them all out before making your own mind up. It's the best advice any of us can honestly give you.

[yuppyflyer]

If its for helis only then try the free download of CGM NeXt thats my current fave.

[Lawser]

Thanks for all the advice, unfortunately no where near a model shop to try out a sim but some good advice as always on the forum

[Lawser]

Can any of you give me an idiots guide to setting up neXt cgm, when i try to calibrate the software doesn't appear to read my radios.
Using the Hobbyking 9 in 1 sim adapter, DX 7s & PCM 9X

[Peteski]

When I first plugged in my DX8 all the stick inputs were on the wrong channels. I simply pressed the "Calibrate Input Device" button, followed the on-screen prompts and it sorted itself out first time. Been plug and play for me ever since. I'm using this usb cable:- USB Simulator Cable RealFlight G4.5

[Lawser]

Yeah, i thought it was meant to be the same, calibrate does nothing for me. The sim adapter appears to be doing all the correct things, laptop sees the adapter but doesnt seem to see my tranny, am i missing something on my radio settings ?

[panosg]

Next sim for me too. It just works, there is no lag at all even on highest graphics ( Mac ) and feels ( to me ) the closest to real life flying.
The only downside is no planes. But I don't do planes anyway

[myxiplx]

If that dongle is anything like mine, you probably need to find which of the four modes neXt will detect. You have to unplug the dongle, then flick the switch, then plug it in again. On mine if you try to change the switch while it's connected it just doesn't work.

the big four will suit you well, AccuRC, Phoenix, Realflight or neXt. Personally I prefer AccuRC, but Realflight is a very close second

+1, they're all good, and for a beginner will easily last you 1-2 years before you even start to notice the weaknesses in any of them. If you put the time in, even if that's just 5-15 minutes every day, or every few days it's amazing how quickly you can learn a lot of skills.

Phoenix and neXt have the lowest requirements I believe hardware wise, so will run on more computers, and for that reason I'd recommend them for a beginner. Phoenix is really easy to use, neXt has a free demo you can download and is getting some great reports on the accuracy of it's flying at the moment.

RealFlight and AccuRC both benefit from a more powerful computer to run them. Most any desktop machine is fine, and gaming computers are way overkill, but if you want to use a laptop it'll have to be a fairly high end one. RealFlight is the granddaddy, it's been top of the heap for a long while, and there are a ton of user generated models. AccuRC is newer, and is my current favourite (although I haven't tried RealFlight). For me it flies head and shoulders better than Phoenix.

[Jez N]

Have only ever tried Phoenix. But recently i have been getting a lot of jerkiness. Although the support from Phoenix have tried to sort it, it's as bad as ever. So currently in the hunt for another sim as well. Have downloaded NeXt, but my phoenix cable isnt compatible, so need to order one from the internet. Also tempted by AccuRC. Just waiting for one to come up in the for sale section to give it a try.